Climate change is coming for America’s property market Insurance is supposed to signal risk. Policymakers should let it https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/09/21/climate-change-...
Parts of America are becoming uninsurable Blame growth in hazardous areas, climate change and bad policy https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/09/21/parts-of-...
Health insurance has it easier too because there’s not really a concept of correlated risk in human populations. Most people do a decent job avoiding hurting themselves but when a flood comes, there’s not a whole lot anybody can do.
I think we have to get much more serious about prevention. People are doing this:
Fire safety:
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/24/1195331310/red-roof-house-fir...
Storm safety:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/mexico-beach-home-survives-hurrica...
We need to mandate this kind of building in new construction and modified construction.
It may be worthwhile to subsidize this, to help with turning existing high risks into low risks.
We need to be more severe on forbidding building in danger zones, and more accepting of insurers pricing these based on risk, so they don't have to leave the state, and others can be priced to more common levels of risk.
We also need to not allow rebuilding in areas that will have these problems again, without some way of mitigating. We should not have to pay for someone's third house in a flood zone. But if you can make it flood proof after the first one, great.
It is. The NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) writes the National Electric Code and other safety codes that get adopted into law as building codes. It was started by a coalition of insurance agencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fire_Protection_Assoc...